Big Bluestem is a hardy, perennial, warm-season grass. I'm hardy, perennial and I like to write...but I'm not a grass. Flash Fiction and Theology make up the blend here...it's kind of like a mixed-grass prairie.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Flash Fiction Friday Fourteen: Lame Similes

The Huffington Post recently published an article titled The Fifteen Funniest Metaphors and Similes Created by Teen Writers. I got such a kick out of them (like Morton Anderson kicking the extra point at a pro bowl game) that I decided to create a story around them. Since most of them deal with a boy and a girl, the story came easily. Enjoy! It's a short one.

He got to know her in art class. He was no good at art. To her, it came naturally. Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from I Can't Believe It's Not Butter.

It wasn't just that. She was sexy. Her pants fit her like a glove, well, maybe more like a mitten, actually.

He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up. Since he was so shy, though, he had a hard time bringing himself to share his feelings with her. After class, he waited for the opportunity to say something to brighten her day or make a connection. But every time she stepped into view, he was speechless. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a
real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or
something.

The days and months and years passed. The boy did nothing but yearn and wait. He graduated from High School and went to college, growing into a man. And when I say grow, he shot up like a 6'3'' Christmas tree you see in grocery store parking lots.

The young man never married. He eventually went to a therapist to seek advice how he could overcome his fear and finally try to speak with the woman of his dreams.

The therapist gave him great advice. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy
who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those
boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at
high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one
of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

He told him that he needed visualization to calm himself. That whenever he thought of the woman, he should think of a rowboat gently crossing a peaceful pond. The man closed his eyes and he saw the boat. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't. And the man felt at peace.

Meanwhile, the woman didn't like being single. She was unhappy. She was as unhappy as when someone puts your cake out in the rain, and
all the sweet green icing flows down and then you lose the recipe, and
on top of that you can't sing worth a damn. Wondering what she should do, she looked at her high school yearbook. She saw the class picture of her junior year art class and the young man who would often smile at her, but who would never speak. She wondered where he was.

Eventually, the star-crossed lovers sought each other out. They agreed to meet in a city park with a large field. They finally spied each other at high noon in the park. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the
grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left
Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at
4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

After a brief courtship, the two were married and grew close. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.